We asked the U-T’s arts reporters and critics to identify people who represent the new faces of the arts in San Diego. Here are their picks:

Geoff Gonzalez

Age: 28

Residence: Normal Heights

If given just one word to describe Geoff Gonzalez, a principal dancer with City Ballet of San Diego since 2008, it would be versatile. Last season’s Romeo in “Romeo and Juliet” is at home in ballet as he is in contemporary, jazz, hip- hop and acrobatic styles.

His unconventional background earned him a top 24 slot in 2007’s “So You Think You Can Dance” and a starring role in the 2010 and 2011 world tours of “The Bad Boys of Dance: Rock the Ballet.”

It all started 13 years ago on a piece of cardboard in his dad’s garage.

“I had a passion to be a hip-hop dancer,” said Gonzalez, a Phoenix native. “I trained myself by watching break-dancers on MTV. I was awful ... there was a break dance battle, and I got my butt kicked.”

Instead of giving up, Gonzalez threw himself into dance training with gusto. He embarrassed himself in his younger sister’s advanced jazz dance class. Then at 17, he joined a beginning ballet class where he so distracted the other students (all 5 years old) that the teacher made him sit on the floor and take notes. But he persevered.

At 18, he entered ballet school, was dazzled by films of Mikhail Baryshnikov, and “it opened my mind and I fell in love with ballet.”

Performing with City Ballet is rewarding, though Gonzalez admits missing the stage time and audience response from the “Bad Boys” tours.

“It’s the ultimate rock star job for a dancer,” he said. “It took me a long time to get used to how quiet classical ballet audiences are.”

Gonzalez is now choreographing and producing pieces at City Ballet, but his dream is to direct his own company.

“I want to be like a basketball coach ... the Chicago Bulls of dance,” he said. “There’s a light in every single dancer, and I’d love to be the person who finds that special something and brings it out.”

Erica Buechner

Age: 34

Residence: North Park

Q: How did you get hooked on modern dance as a 12-year-old Ramona grade-schooler?

A: “I was a bit of a tomboy growing up, and I enjoyed that modern dance wasn’t about being beautiful. It had more life experience to it, a grittiness, heaviness and realness. It’s about finding yourself in the movement. I feel the most myself when I’m dancing.”

Q: Who were some of your local mentors?

A: Faith Jensen-Ismay is a big influence. I danced with her for 11 years. And I started training very young with Jean Isaacs. Also Patricia Sandback at San Diego State.

Q: What’s your signature style?

A: “I do a lot of grounded movement and I often use theatrical elements in my work. I’m not afraid of acting and talking and I like to use comedy.”